Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Amazon’s Kindle 2 Will Debut Feb. 9 - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

See the full post for more details, and the “leaked photos” link below for some alleged snapshots. I’d still prefer a small form-factor netbook Tablet PC with 8+ hour battery life, and hope to be able to buy a cost-effective one when Windows 7 is released. If Amazon.com makes its ebook service available for other device types at that time, great. In general, I don’t believe hardware and services should be tightly coupled.

Amazon would not comment in any more detail about the coming announcement, but the Kindle’s detail page on Amazon.com tells the story. It now says the electronic book reader will ship in four to six weeks. It previously suggested a wait of 11 to 13 weeks.

The device has been out of stock since November, after Oprah Winfrey touted it on her show. The announcement seems to confirm our suspicions that the original Kindle has been obsolete since that time and that everyone who purchased the device over the holidays from Amazon.com — or put their name on a waiting list — will receive the newer version.

There has already been much speculation about the upcoming Kindle. If the leaked photos on the gadget site Boy Genius Report are to be believed, the new device corrects some of the design flaws of the first model, adding round buttons instead of those strange angular ones, and smaller side buttons to avoid accidental page turns.